In recent year, based on the framework of Hofstede’s dimension, some indications have been provided to business and corporations’ practices. It has shown from research that power can never be equally balanced between people. People come from different countries with different cultural backgrounds may have divers perceptions toward such unequal distribution of power. It is apparent that people from some cultures or countries such as Japan, China, and Malaysia are more tolerant of power inequality than those from western countries as Canada, America or Netherlands.
Japan is a representative country known as its high power distance compared to other countries. Japanese employees are highly ...view middle of the document...
People in Dell tend to acquire equality from higher managements. In contrast, IBM Japan displays a correspondingly high power distance as in the business cultural background of Japan. Different from most characteristics of western corporations, commands and information of IBM Japan always given and flow form top managements to bottom, superiors of the company tend to be more autocratic and have more power in decision making. As a result of differential power distance, IBM Japan has a much clearer organization structures level from top to bottom than Dell in America. “A culture with a high power distance follows a strict ladder of positions where power diminishes from its summit to its base.” Differences in power distance could also affects the ways how people communicate with each other in the work place. As mentioned above, for IBM Japan, communication always flows from top management to the bottom level. And staffs in IBM Japan generally avoid directly pass their own idea to senior workers instead of express it in the implicit way. In contrast to Dell, their pattern of communication appear to be parallel as staffs in the company seek equality to each other, even employees from the lowest level are able to communicate with the highest management and pass their own opinion directly even though it could be conflict with superiors. Moreover, in the...
